Bev Vincent

I was imaged twice today. Well, more than that, actually, but on two separate occasions. First thing this morning I had some X-rays taken to help diagnose lower back pain. Apparently my spine’s fine, it’s just a muscle that’s ornery. Once upon a time I used to work around X-rays all the time, so I was more hesitant to have a medical image taken. Not so much any more.

Yesterday I spent my entire lunch break on the phone with Kim Morgan, a reporter from the Houston Chronicle. She saw the article in the local newspaper and decided to pick up the story that her paper. As it turns out, we’re both originally from Canada, so we had that to talk about to break the ice at first. Today the newspaper’s photographer met me at the house and took a dozen or more pictures of me in my office to accompany the article. I recognized him from the previous time he shot me for the newspaper, five years ago. I’m not very comfortable in front of a camera (at least look like you’re happy, he said to me at one point!) so I’ll be curious to see which shot gets used and how much of a doofus I look like in it.

About a decade ago I joined the local Writers’ Guild (I always feel like I need an apostrophe there, but a lot of organizations omit it) and even served as the president for one year. The guild held annual conferences, bringing in agents and editors from NY as well as local writers of repute, including Bill Crider and Joe R. Lansdale. One of the people I met through the guild was one of their success stories — Colleen Thompson, a school teacher who met her agent through one of the guild’s conferences, if I remember the story correctly. Colleen saw the article in the newspaper last week and asked me if I’d do a Q&A for her writer’s blog. I agreed, and the results are up today at Boxing the Octopus.

Last night’s NCIS seemed a little strange for the first fifteen minutes or so. Mostly it was McGee, I think, who seemed to be out of character. It was like they had a different writer for the episode. That and the fact that the actor seems to be losing a lot of weight, so he is physically different as well. I always enjoy the sparring between Gibbs and the FBI agent played by Hill Street Blues alumni Joe Spano.

We’re supposed to get some freezing weather again these next couple of days. Might get sleet here and snow or freezing rain a few dozen miles to the north of us.

What to make of Lost this week?

At the point where Dogen told Jack that he was going to have to convince Sayid to take the pill (cut to commercial), I found myself thinking: what a dilemma. On TV shows like this, characters sometimes intuit what they’re supposed to do. They simply have a gut feeling and act on it. What would Jack’s gut tell him to do, and would he be right? Instead, Jack came up with a gutsy way of getting the others to tell him more. Well played.

I’m not sure I would have hung onto the stolen taxi as long as Kate did, but she didn’t really have much choice. It’s not like you can stroll around L.A. and get very far, and she’s not exactly a car thief. Kudos to the taxi driver for spotting his chance to escape and taking it! The guy who helped Kate get her cuffs off looked familiar. Have we seen him before on Lost or is it just a familiar actor? Did I notice a momentary frisson when Kate saw Jack outside the airport terminal? A brief almost-déjà-vu? I’m regularly reminded of Jake in the Dark Tower series whose mind ricocheted with two time lines, the one he was living through and the one he should have been living through. At first I thought it would be Jack who she cornered in the hospital, but pulling Ethan out of the hat was a brilliant stroke, I thought. Of course it should be Ethan who tends to the pregnant Claire.

And then there’s feral Claire cum Rousseau. The implication from Dogen’s statement is that Claire died. Certainly possible, but we’re not yet buying everything the crafty leader has to say, are we? After all, I don’t think Rousseau’s shipmates all died before becoming infected–though it’s possible, I suppose. The way Jin leapt around in time he may have missed some significant incidents.

How far as Sawyer come in the past three years? Con man turned romantic, tragic hero. Slacker turned domestic. Kicking himself for asking Juliet to stay on the island just a couple of weeks with him. What’s to become of him now?

It wasn’t exactly an ohmigod episode, but it was a solid episode. I like the direction of Season Six. I’m afraid it’s going to be over all too soon.

The Stephen King Illustrated Companion won the Readers’ Choice award in the non-fiction category of the 3rd Annual Black Quill Awards. In every category except for one, the readers chose a different nominee than the editors did.

I just received an interview request from the Houston Chronicle–I guess the article in last week’s Villager came to someone’s notice!

Last night’s episode of House was interesting in its shift in perspective, concentrating on Cuddy’s view of Princeton Plainsborough. Especially fascinating was the way she and House intersected–their interactions were much rarer and briefer than one might have thought. All this stuff is going on in his department, but only the tip of the iceberg comes to her attention. I wonder if she gets called “bitch” that many times every day.

I wonder if Charlie’s engagement has run its course on Two and a Half Men. Though last night’s episode had a touch of the usual hilarity, I found it somewhat off balance. It’s unusual for the show to attempt anything approaching seriousness, especially ending on downers for the past two weeks in a row. The Big Bang Theory was a good remedy, though. Valentine’s Day and geeks–how can that not be funny?

I was thinking about a conversation I had somewhere about The Mentalist, where I offered the opinion that Robin Tunney looks like she’s half asleep most of the time. The contrast between Lisbon and Kate Beckett on Castle is great. I have no trouble believing Beckett as a cop, and a damned good one at that. On the other hand, I don’t buy Lisbon as an investigator. She doesn’t seem convincing. It was fun seeing Beckett thrown off by meeting Joe Torre, and the banter between Castle and Beckett is getting more interesting. I guessed early on that Lana was a daughter instead of a mistress, in keeping with the theme of absentee fathers.

Tuesday night: NCIS, Lost, and not on at the same time. I like this schedule.

I was one of the over 106 million people who tuned in to watch TV commercials yesterday evening (surpassing the M*A*S*H finale as the most-watched program ever). I didn’t really care who won the game, though I had a mild affinity for the Saints. Good game — tough and close in the early going–it looked impossible to gain any yardage on the ground. Clean (except for the tussle after the brilliantly executed onside kick), hardly any penalties, no possession-changing fumbles, only one interception, strong defense, and exciting right to the end. The commercials on the other hand…not so impressed. The Betty White / Mars bar one made me laugh, and the geek in me appreciated the nod to Lost in a beer commercial, though I don’t recall which beer it was. I also picked out the actor who plays Marvin Candle in another commercial — you’d almost think it was ABC instead of CBS. And ho ho ho at Leno, Oprah and Dave.

The Who has never been one of my favorite groups. They have a handful of songs that I like a lot and other stuff I can barely stand to listen to. When I got my iPod a few years ago, I bought Live at Leeds and deleted it after a couple of times through. I did like their final album of the 20th century, which was released around 1982 (it had Emminence Front on it) and I stayed up late the night before my Christmas exam in Astronomy to watch the simulcast of their “farewell concert” from Toronto, probably that same year. My wife really liked their halftime performance yesterday. I thought it was just okay.

The image over yonder is the cover of Close Encounters of the Urban Kind, edited by Jennifer Brozek. It contains my contest-winning story “The Fingernail test.” The book is scheduled for release on April 4, 2010. You can pre-order at a special discounted price from Apex Publications here.

The first episode of Undercover Boss was pretty good, though I think next week’s will be even better since it is the CEO of Hooters.

We watched Amelia this weekend. I had no idea that Amelia Earheart was married to G.P. Putnam (the publisher, later Penguin-Putnam) or that she had a fling with Gore Vidal’s father. Hillary Swank is good as Earheart, but there’s something crucial missing from the film. It all seems on the surface, without any real emotional depth. I liked Doctor Who’s Christopher Eccleston as Fred Noonan, though his part was small. Interesting in terms of history but not memorable as a piece of dramatic filmmaking, in my opinion.

I’m about 100 pages into Black Hills. Turns out the ghost inhabiting the protagonist is General Custer (if I’d read the dust jacket I would have discovered that earlier) and that the protagonist plans to blow up Mount Rushmore, which was part of his vision as a child.

My interview with the Woodlands Villager, the community newspaper, made the front page. Not too shabby.

One of these days I’m going to figure out how to take notes while I’m in the shower. Some of my absolute best ideas have come to me there. I’ve usually just finished with my morning writing session and I guess my brain is still working. I know a waterproof computer is too much to ask for. Maybe some sort of dry erase board? I don’t know how many times I’ve had to stagger out of the stall, find a scrap of paper and a pen and scratch something down. Happened to me again this morning.

I started Black Hills by Dan Simmons last night. Only got a couple of chapters in, but it’s intriguing so far. Starts with a Native American being possessed by the ghost of a dead white soldier and then jumps ahead to the construction of the sculptures at Mt. Rushmore.

I’m not sure I buy the romance between Gibbs and the omnipresent attorney this season on NCIS. It seems forced. She’s always in his face, he always arranges to be alone with her whenever they want to talk, but I don’t sense a spark.

So, is Ray Romano’s character on Men of a Certain Age going to give up his party store and go on the senior circuit playing golf? I doubt it, but that might make things interesting. I’m starting to agree with Kelly Laymon that Scott Bakula’s character is the weak link of the show. Guy needs to grow up.

The Stephen King Illustrated Companion made the preliminary ballot for the Stoker Award. This is not a nomination. The active membership of the HWA will now vote on this ballot to produce the list of nominees (with some help from the additions jury where necessary). I’m not sure exactly what the schedule for that round of voting is. Once the nominees are produced, there is a second round of voting to determine the winners, who will be announced at the Stoker banquet in Brighton, England at the end of March. Here’s a new interview from the local newspaper arising from news of my Edgar Award nomination.

The weather guru is predicting that we may get another blast of winter next week, with the possibility of sleet and/or snow. This really has been an unusual winter.

We usually start a jigsaw puzzle during the Christmas vacation. It’s something to do around the table while we’re visiting. This year’s was a 1500 piece challenger that featured an Italian trattoria with the rest of the colorful city visible in the background. Because I’m partly colorblind, I tend to go more by shape than by what’s actually on the pieces, so it takes me a while to finish a puzzle like this. Last night I finally put the last pieces into place. Quite a marathon.

Okay, here’s where we break away to talk about Lost. On LiveJournal, this will be behind the cut. If you’re viewing this on my blog and you don’t want spoilers, look away!

The long wait was well worth it. What an episode! Instead of the two possible outcomes from the white screen at the end of Season 5 (it worked — Oceanic 815 makes it to L.A. | it didn’t work — they’re still stuck on the island), the writers found a way to have their cake and eat it, too. Except the Oceanic 815 that makes it to L.A. is not the same one that we saw in 2004. It’s mostly the same, except it has Desmond on board (albeit briefly?) and Shannon’s still in Australia. Hurley is now charmed instead of cursed, and Rose is the one consoling Jack through the turbulence instead of t’other way around. With a few notable exceptions, they’re a grim lot. Charlie’s suicidal. Kate’s still in chains. Jack’s distraught. Locke’s depressed and lying about his adventures. Not exactly the most brilliant outcome to their problems on the island…and things only get worse. Missing casket, missing knives, Kate on the run with Claire as an accidental hostage, Jin under arrest, Sun still lying about speaking English–or maybe she really can’t.

My assumption is that whatever happened at the end of Season Five (and there’s a chance that it wasn’t a nuclear explosion) caused a butterfly ripple effect around the world. Small changes that accumulated to cause the differences we saw–Hurley’s good fortune, for example. So it is entirely possible that Charlie isn’t a successful musician and that Sun can’t speak English. Most things are the same, but enough is different that we shouldn’t take anything for granted.

And then there’s the other timeline, which is now in 2007 on the island. Fake-Locke, who I’ve taken to calling Esau for Biblical reasons, finally shows his true colors, which means it’s time to go back and scrutinize every previous appearance of the smoke monster. What we assumed to be a mindless guardian with special powers proves to be something else altogether. And there’s still no guarantee that Jacob=good and Esau=bad. Esau wants to go home–but where the hell’s that? I’m also a little perplexed by the visionary people who have appeared on the island. Some of them were perhaps Esau’s attempts to connect with someone to do his bidding. Hurley’s imaginary friend. Eko’s brother. But what of Christian? Though Jack saw him briefly, he never approached Jack, and we actually saw him in Jacob’s cabin when it still had its protective ring of ash, which should have kept Esau at bay.

Plenty to think about. Is Sayeed himself after his resurrection? I knew he was going to come back to life, partly because he had to, and partly because Miles didn’t read anything from him after he was supposedly dead.

Saw this little guy on the median while I was out at lunchtime. No coyotes in sight, but two lanes of traffic zooming past him on either side. Roadrunners can fly, though they seem to prefer not to. I kept looking around for a big truck with an ACME sign on the side.

I finished my essay for the BOMC calendar this morning and sent it off to the editor. It turned out well, I think. The editor said it seemed fine with him, too.

I had one major problem with last night’s House. The episode had one ongoing mystery (besides the medical mystery, which is usually neither here nor there except as a catalyst for everything else that’s going on). The problem was that the opening credits spoiled the mystery. I recognized the name Michael Weston, mostly because the actor appeared on an episode of Burn Notice, where the protagonist’s name happens to be Michael Westen. However, when Cuddy’s boyfriend (and House’s erstwhile private detective) didn’t make an obvious appearance early in the episode, it was fairly obvious that he was the one behind the destructive pranks at Wilson’s condo. Other than that little detail, I thought it was a top-notch episode of the series.

I don’t think I mentioned previously that I posted my review of Joe Hill’s Horns recently. The review, however, came to the author’s attention and he links to it in his blog post today. So I’m linking back, to create some sort of Internet Gordian knot.

Tonight is, of course, Lost night. A one-hour warm-up followed by two hours of Lostly goodness. Can’t wait. Don’t bother to call–you’ll only get the machine. I have been avoiding absolutely everything and anything that might contain even a slight spoiler for the new season. Somewhat apropos of this, I had an idea whilst in the shower this morning (that happens a lot, actually) that led me to pitch an article idea to the editors of Lost magazine. I have no idea whether they will be even remotely interested, but I had to make the pitch, at least. Stay tuned.

Received an ARC of the next Dan Simmons novel, Black Hills, yesterday. It goes straight to the top of my TBR list. Sorry, Mr. Hogan. You’re down to #2.

We watched Whip It, the female roller derby movie directed by Drew Barrymore and starring Ellen Page last night. Also featuring Marcia Gay Harden and Daniel Stern as her parents, and Juliette Lewis and Kristen Wiig as two of the other roller derby players. The film felt a little uneven in terms of pacing, but the roller derby scenes were choreographed extremely well, and the film managed to have a good blend of comedy and drama. The scenes between Harden and Page are particularly strong, but there are some other excellent moments, such as the one where Wiig attempts to set Page’s character back on the right path after some mis-steps. It wasn’t blown away by the movie, but I thought it was very well done.

The Monday night comedies were particularly funny last night, from How I Met Your Mother’s “perfect week” to The Big Bang Theory’s exploration of the dual nature of the electron in the molecular structure of graphene. How could that not be hilarious?

We’ve all but decided to go up to New York for the Edgar banquet. I mean, what are the odds that I’ll ever be an Edgar nominee again? And on the ultra-remote possibility that I were to win (stranger things have happened, though not many) it would be a shame not to be there. We’re going to go to have a good time. Dress to the nines and mingle with high society with no expectations of anything more from the evening than a nice meal. (Seriously — it better be a good meal.)

I fnished Ridley Pearson’s Killer Summer this weekend. Review to come but in brief I thought the caper was overly complicated for what they hoped to achieve. What was the point of all that elaborate misdirection?

Picked up Gaiman’s Anansi Boys and finally got into it. I’m up to the point where the main character’s brother has just replaced him at work for the day, rummaged around in the computer and discovered some offshore accounts that he brandishes around to save his brother’s job.

Was asked to contribute an essay to the 2011 King desk calendar, so I came up with an idea, pitched it to the editor, and was given the green light. It’s a terrific gig — I got the first draft done this morning and should have the essay finished by the end of the week. The pay is very nice. Not enough to cover a trip to NYC, but it will definitely defray some of the trip.

Searched out all the Easter Eggs on the Lost Season Five DVD (not very many this time around) , so now I’m completely up to speed for tomorrow night’s Season Six debut. I have been studiously avoiding absolutely anything that might give away any of the plot, including reports of the sneak preview they had on the beach in Hawaii a couple of days ago.

Stumbled across an old Levinson/Link TV movie called Guilty Conscience this weekend. It stars Anthony Hopkins as a philandering criminal attorney who is trying to come up with a foolproof way to murder his wife (Blythe Danner). Each time he concocts a plan, he puts himself on trial and tries to poke holes in his story…usually successfully. Much to his surprise and chagrin, it appears that his wife has similar designs — and a willing co-conspirator: one of his current lovers, Swoozie Kurtz. The ending is a bit abrupt, but it just goes to show that you can overthink a problem sometimes.

Flamboyant piano-playing songwriter rockets to attention partly because of considerable talent and partly because of outlandish outfits. Almost 40 years ago, that was Elton John — in 2010 it’s Lady Gaga. I’ve been aware of the name for a while but only this weekend sought out some of her music. I found a brief concert performance/interview combo on our OnDemand system. I have to confess to being impressed by her savvy and her chops. Pairing her with Sir Elton seems like a no-brainer. Their performance on the Grammies wasn’t earth-shattering, but I enjoyed it. At some point, like Sir Elton, she’ll probably tire of the camp and the performance art and let her music speak for herself, but I don’t begrudge her the theatrics.

I received my official congratulations letter from the MWA yesterday regarding my Edgar nomination. I’m still undecided about attending the banquet. Round-trip airfare is cheaper than the hotel!

So, who was Michael Westin channeling as the man in the fancy suit last night on Burn Notice? The devil or Clint Eastwood? Not a bad episode, though exactly what Michael expects to get by messing around with Gilroy remains unclear.

I don’t trot out my Ph. D. very often, but I’m dusting it off right now. It’s in chemistry, which makes me something of an expert on molecules. The ones on Fringe last night weren’t molecules. First of all, when Walter looked at the molecule and said it reminded him of hydrogen cyanide I went — what? Hydrogen cyanide is one of the simplest molecules in existence: H-C∈N. That’s it. Three atoms. The molecule that was ultimately displayed on the screen looked like some honking big protein. It very well may have had a cyano group in it somewhere. Secondly, that molecule was so huge that there’s no way it would disperse through the air with a little bit of hot water to perk it up. I don’t ask for much from my pseudoscientific shows, but at least a passing acknowledgement of rudimentary chemistry would be appreciated, thank you very much. And chromium trioxide, a controlled substance? It’s just the anhydride of chromic acid and anyone with a little bit of knowledge could make it by the boatload.

And don’t get me started on the carbon chain shaped like a seahorse that breaks just about every rule of chemical bonding known to mankind. Somewhere Linus Pauling is rolling over in his grave.

The cold spell has arrived. A front moved through in the early morning hours bringing lots of rain. After it did, the temperature dropped about 20 degrees and we’re on the way to the mid-30s tonight.

I’m sure that most of you also receive e-mail alerts from Amazon advising you of the availability of titles that might be of interest. Today’s recommendation was for A Dark Matter by Peter Straub. A reasonably astute suggestion, except for some reason they want me to buy the Large Print edition. I know my vision is getting worse — my wife knows my vision is getting worse — how does Amazon know? (Really, it’s not that bad!)

Last night I finished my homework for the new season of Lost. I watched “The Incident” and most of the special features on the DVD. I still have to find all the Easter Eggs. I’m always fascinated by the creative process — how certain shots are constructed. It destroys some of the magic, but I’m still interested. Michael Emerson’s tour of the Disney offices was fun, too. “To do: Kill Ben,” Damon and Carlton have written on their white board when he enters the room.

I’m interested in seeing the new Mel Gibson film, Edge of Darkness, but I’m even more interested in seeing the original BBC miniseries. I see it’s now out on DVD so I just ordered a copy. It was very well reviewed at the time and it has an Eric Clapton soundtrack.

I always find it interesting when my day job and my writing life intersect. For the most part they run in parallel, but every now and then something happens to bring them together momentarily. The first time it happened was way back in the 1990s when I was a computer programmer. Our platform of choice in those days was the VAX with VMS operating system. I subscribed to various VAX/VMS mailing lists and became familiar with a guy who posted as GoatHunter…who I would later get to know as Hunter Goatley, the guy who runs Robert McCammon’s web site. This morning I received a day-job-related e-mail about a new message board someone was trying out to see if we were interested in participating. He mentioned another implementation of the software, which allows people to ask questions and vote for good answers. In the example he cited, the top-rated answerer just happened to be an old acquaintance of mine from back in the alt.books.stephen-king days. How random is that?

Had a physical yesterday. All my specs are within tolerance (though my cholesterol hit 200 for the first time ever) except it seems that my red blood cells are overweight.

Ridley Pearson was at the local Barnes & Noble last night promoting his latest YA novel, The Academy. A significant fraction of attendees were young’uns, some of them very enthusiastic about his books. He arrived about fifteen minutes early and immediately sat with those already present and talked, answered questions, made jokes, recounted anecdotes. He has cowritten several Peter Pan novels with Dave Barry and is writing a series of YA thrillers set in Disney theme parks. He’s self depracating (“this series has 12 fans, as opposed to that one, which has nine,” he said at one point) and enthusiastic. His deal with Disney gives him full access to all of their theme parks at any time — he’d just gotten back from a trip to Florida where he was on some of the rides at 5 a.m. Creepy place when there’s no one else around, he said.

The idea for doing the Peter Pan books came from his young daughter who, according to his legend, stopped him in the middle of reading to her to ask where Peter had first met the pirates and other questions not answered in the Barrie novel. Turns out that Peter Pan is in the public domain most places, except in England where an act of Parliament preserved the copyright. The recipient of proceeds is the Great Ormand Street Hospital in London, as stipulated in Barrie’s will.  Pearson said that about 90% of the money from the European editions of their books goes to this hospital.

Pearson is doing a lot of multimedia tie-ins with his work, including ARGs (which he called Augmented Reality instead of the more traditional Alternate Realigy), websites with interactive videos, etc. I think it’s the Peter Pan novels that have been adapted as a stage production that was workshopped in hopes of landing it on Broadway at some point.

He talked a little about the Rock Bottom Remainders. He said that during their first tour, for which they rented Aretha Franklin’s tour bus, they stopped somewhere in Alabama at about 4 a.m. to refuel. Before they were able to leave, he said, about five people showed up with copies of The Stand for King to sign. Imagine the logistics, he said. Someone had to recognize King, make some phone calls, these people had to stagger out of bed, find their copies of the book and drive to the gas station all in the length of time it took to refuel a bus! This was the same tour with the infamous incident where he and Dave Barry saw someone in the audience in front of King with all ten fingernails on fire. “I never want to be that famous,” Pearson said to Barry at the time–after Barry picked himself up off the floor having fallen there in astonishment. The Remainders are preparing to do another tour shortly, he said.

I bought a copy of his most recent adult thriller, Killer Summer, and read about 30 pages or so. I’ve only read one other of his thrillers, Parallel Lies, which I thought was decent enough if lacking a bit in characterization. He also signed my copy of The Diary of Ellen Rimbauer, signing both as himself and as Joyce Reardon, the putative editor of the diary.

This week’s NCIS was really good. I guessed that the husband had something to do with the contract on their whistleblower early on, but that didn’t detract from the overall fun storyline. The Shatner reference was funny, as were the references to snakes on a plane. I wonder what the deal was with Gibbs getting whapped by the car at the end. Maybe he had some real-life injury they need to work into filming the way they did with Reid on Criminal Minds, who had to get shot to cover the fact that the actor had bunged up his knee.